


Barghest's Lullaby

by akitcougar



Series: We are the heroes (of our time) [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 2 am is a really morbid time for me to write, BARGHEST IS FUCKED UP, BUT HE JUST WOULDN'T SHUT UP, Gen, I HAVE HAD NIGHTMARES, that irony though, that on top of Barghest being a morbid character anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3946948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akitcougar/pseuds/akitcougar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Don't you ever tame your demons<br/>But always keep 'em on a leash</i><br/>- "Arsonist's Lullabye" (Hozier)</p><p> </p><p>Andy Johnson was never a normal kid. He never wanted to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barghest's Lullaby

_1975_

    The old stump in the backyard looked like a porcupine, and Andy kept throwing the kitchen knives at it. It wasn't like anyone really used them anymore, not since Andy had claimed the kitchen as his place. The kitchen wasn't anything more than a bedroom at this point. Everyone fended for themselves when it came to food.

    Andy's brothers complained it wasn't fair that Andy got the kitchen, but he'd gotten good enough at knife throwing that the younger ones didn't bother him, and the older three had already staked their claim on the attic and the larger bedroom.

    Their father, of course, had the master bedroom and the stairs in the front hall. He walked in drunk, left the house drunk, and none of the boys dared set foot where their father would see them. The only thing all eight of them worked together on was making sure their father never, ever had to see Tiny Bob.

    Speaking of... Andy held onto his knife instead of letting it go mid-swing. Tiny Bob, in the stained diaper and nothing else, ran across the yard as fast as his two-year-old legs would go.

    Andy dropped his knife on the pile and chased Tiny Bob down, scooping him up after quickly overtaking the toddler.

    “FRANKLIN!” Andy shouted at the top of his lungs. He winced slightly at the volume of his own voice.

    His nine-year-old younger brother ran out, sweat glistening on his forehead. Andy shoved the toddler into Frankie's arms. “It's your day to deal with the brat,” he said, as menacing as a boy could sound before his voice broke. “Don't let it run around. And don’t give me bullshit excuses again.”

    “Stop calling Tiny Bob an 'it', Andy,” Frankie said, pouting. Tiny Bob laughed, clinging to his brother's over-sized, hand-me-down shirt. “He's our brother.”

    “Not the way the Old Man sees it,” Andy replied, picking up his knives again. “If it were up to him, the brat wouldn't have been born.”

    “Since when did you defend Dad?”

    Andy whirled around, holding the knife in his hands at Frankie. “Since that fucking brat ran in front of my knife. Five seconds later, and the Old Man seeing Tiny Bob would no longer be a problem.”

    Frankie paled, and he ran away from his older brother, holding Tiny Bob close. The toddler was oblivious to it all, smiling and waving at Andy over Frankie's shoulder. Andy took aim.

    His knife landed in the door frame as Frankie ran in.

 

* * *

 

_1976_

    Willy had been working at the run down gas station for years, getting money for the others to eat and for him and their father to drink themselves to death. Little Rob and Alex had been working nearly as long, and it was never enough.

    All of them had dropped out. The Old Man insisted they didn't need to know anything after middle school. Of the younger boys, Jack, Frankie, or Tommy would skip school to take care of Tiny Bob while the oldest three were at work.

    This was the system they'd figured out, and it worked well enough.

    Andy, as usual, was right in the middle. Too old for school, but still too young to actually work anywhere. That suited him fine. He left Tiny Bob to the younger ones and spent the days out in the forest, teaching himself how to hunt.

It was quieter out in the forest. No Tiny Bob screaming, no boys running up and down the stairs, no Willy or the Old Man walking in drunk and yelling.

    Every few days or so, he got something good, something more than squirrels and rabbits. A turkey, a wild dog. There was one day where he even got a deer. A hunter, one with an actual rifle instead of old rusty kitchen knives, taught Andy how to skin kills and dry meat.

    He never brought any home. Some of the rabbits were turned into jerky, but that was the only meat he ate from his kills. He didn't want to share. He tossed the extra meat down the ravine. The wolves could take it for all he cared. All that mattered was cleaning them up, scraping bone with knife and watching flesh peel away. It never felt like enough, no matter how many animals he killed.

    He kept the bones, though, arranging them into elaborate sculptures. He turned squirrels into miniature people, killing each other. Rabbit bones became the story of his life, his seven brothers.

    The deer carcass was his father, full of knives that held it to the old oak tree.

 

* * *

 

_1978_

    Their father came home late at night, drunk.

    That wasn't an unusual occurrence in and of itself. All five of them knew to keep out of the front hall. Even Tiny Bob no longer ran carefree around the house.

    (Little Rob had run off with his sweetheart, running away to some far off city like Pittsburgh or Cleveland. Jack had gotten shot by a hunter. Andy found him dead in the woods two days later. Alex just disappeared, never saying anything.)

    Andy was sleeping on the old blanket in the kitchen, his best knife in easy reach under his pillow. He could have taken the attic room Rob and Alex used to share, but the kitchen was his place. It was pig hot, and he had stripped to his boxers.

    (He'd stolen the boxers from Alex's drawer, once they realized he was just gone. Before that, he always went commando.)

    Andy had the unfortunate affliction of being a light sleeper in a house with two alcoholics (Willy was just as bad as the Old Man now) and three boys under the age of 13. When the Old Man slammed the door open, Andy jumped to his feet, knife in hand, before he realized what had happened.

    He would have just stood and waited for his father to go up the stairs to the master bedroom before going back to sleep, but the Old Man had other plans that night.

    Andy wasn't prepared when his father stumbled into the kitchen for the first time in five years.

    “BOY!” he roared, his eyes crazed, not even seeing which son was there.

    Andy tightened his grip on the knife, his eyes narrowing.

    “ALL YOU BOYS FUCKING RUINED MY FUCKING LIFE!” the Old Man kept shouting. “YOU KILLED MY FUCKING WIFE.”

    “Tiny Bob killed Mom,” Andy said warily, shifting the blame onto the youngest brother. His mom had died in childbirth with her last son. Hopefully that would get the Old Man to be quiet.

    “YOU ALL DID!”

    Ah. He was going to be unreasonable tonight.

    All two hundred pounds and six feet of the Old Man rushed at Andy. Startled, Andy jumped to the side. The Old Man tripped and fell. Andy, in a panic, stabbed his knife at the nearest part of the Old Man, the back of his knee.

    The Old Man screamed.

    Andy just wanted him to shut up for once and to stop yelling.

    Everything went silent.

    At least, it sounded like silence. Andy could tell his father was still screaming, his heart was still beating, but there wasn't the actual noise. Just an imprint on his mind.

    Andy took a few moments to catch his breath. He felt the snores of his brothers, still all asleep on the floor above.

    Quiet. It was finally quiet.

    He'd never heard this much silence before.

    The Old Man was grabbing at the knife in his leg. Andy picked up another one and pinned his father's hand to the floor. The Old Man still squirmed and silently screamed, and Andy used a third knife to cut his throat.

    No more noise.

    Habit took over, and Andy found himself skinning his father, tossing the meat to the side as he freed the bones from their fleshy ties.

    It felt good, better than rabbits or deer. Knife scraped bone clean, and it felt _right_.

    He felt the snores of his brothers.

    A grin spread across Andy's face.

\-----

    They came for him a few days later. He hadn't left the house. His morbid art was strung up on the walls, human skin and bones nailed into the wood with an array of kitchen knives.

    He sat on the floor, grinning madly, as guns were pointed in his face. Blood covered his now handcuffed hands, and the wild gleam in his eyes frightened the trained police officers.

    Outside, a wild dog howled.

\-----

    They abducted him a few days later from his jail cell. The sheriff had kept other inmates far away from the crazy sixteen year old, once he went out and saw the bodies for himself. He'd gotten back from the ramshackle house too late to save one of the jailed.

    Andy was finally left alone.

    So when there were men with guns standing over him, Andy was mildly surprised.

    “Andrew Johnson?” one asked. Andy nodded.

    They covered his head with a hood and took him away. A few hours later, they uncovered it. There was a bright light over his head, and he was tied up to a chair. The crusted blood was still all over his body.

    There were photos of his art arranged on a board in front of him. The rabbit bones, the deer carcass. His latest masterpiece, his first experiment using humans.

    Andy couldn't help the grin on his face.

    “... And the fuckheads didn't even know they had a allohuman on them,” he heard a voice say. “If we can find out what this kid does, who knows how fucking useful he'd be. He's already as crazy as a fucking wild dog. Dump him in the middle of one of Brezhnev's meetings...”

    The fucker had an annoying voice. Andy wanted it to be quiet.

    There was a new feeling, almost like a muscle, but in his mind. He hadn't noticed it much until now. He flexed it, as if moving a thought.

    The voice cut out. He felt it stop. It tried to shout. It failed.

    Andy loosened the thought, letting the man hear his crazy laughter.

    “... Well. Now we know what the kid does.”

    The two men walked around in front of Andy. One was in a military uniform, the other in a suit fancier than anything Andy had ever seen.

    “Well, Mr. Johnson,” one said, the one in a suit. He hadn't spoken before. “You face a very long time in a psych ward, except for the fact that you're useful.”

    Andy cocked his head to the side. He didn't speak because, for once, he wanted to know what someone had to say.

    “Survive training, and you might just have a job.”

 

* * *

 

_1984_

    He was called Barghest now, officially. Anyone who'd heard of him called him the Bogeyman, the CIA's Black Dog. His silent dead zones announced that he approached, and there was nothing his targets could do.

    He, of course, always got a new chance to perfect his art. Ever since his first exhibition in the house, he craved to create more. The CIA was more than happy to leave him to his work.

 

* * *

 

_1986_

    “Look, Agent Barghest,” the director said. “There's a bit of a situation here.”

    Barghest stood, leaning against the wall. He was tossing a knife up and down, his black mask with green lenses covering his face. He looked right at the director, the silent threat dangling in the air.

    The director swallowed. “We... well, you know the usual method of firing an employee. We... can't really do that to you. And I really, really think this whole Bastion thing is a bad idea for you.”

    “No shit,” Barghest said, his voice full of gravel. He was grinning. He was nearly always grinning.

    “Yet... the higher ups no longer appreciate your work.”

    “Philistines.”

    It was a word he'd picked up from some yuppie political columnist he'd run into on a mission. He'd nearly killed the reporter, but the kid was like Barghest: he had a power that he wasn't afraid to use. He also hated the new “hero” group called Bastion. Government funded, all allohuman operatives were supposed to funnel into it.

    “Yes. Quite.” The director dabbed at his bald head with a handkerchief. The white cloth would look lovely with a bloody bone stabbed through it, Barghest thought.

    “So we're going to let you go with a request.”

    “And that request?”

    “Please don't kill any more operatives,” the director pleaded. “I can't keep explaining why we've lost more than twenty men trying to get rid of one.”

    “And you'll let me create my art in peace?”

    “Yes.”

    Funny. The director sounded like he'd regret the decision.

 

* * *

 

_1992_

    Barghest controlled roughly half the allohuman gangs in New York, and all of them now created his two of his favorite things: chaos and havoc. An excellent combination when he wanted to piss off the Bastion fucks who ruined a perfectly legitimate job at the CIA.

    There was still some stupid gang wars between his gangs, the others, and fucking Bastion, but they didn't bother Barghest much. More violence was always good.

    He made sure to spread his masterpieces around the city, but the allohuman ghetto in Alphabet City held a special place in his heart. The capes there became a disproportionate number of his works. It amused him, seeing Bastion scurry around trying to figure out who was behind it, but he was slowly growing bored of the game.

    He was surprised when the political columnist from years ago appeared in the middle of his lair.

    “What do you want?” Barghest growled out.

    “I have a deal for you,” the man said. “And I think it will be one you like.”

    Barghest raised an eyebrow. Here, deep in his hideout, he wore no mask to cover the grizzly, bearded face. He looked older than his thirty years. “How so?”

    “Have you ever thought about spreading your exhibitions to other cities?”

    Barghest nodded. “'Cept, who would run shit here?”

    The man grinned. “If you accept my deal, you wouldn't have to worry about that at all.”

    “And what would you have me do?”

    “Exactly what you do best, only this time there are no rules. Just targets. I would give you free reign to do with them as you please, provided they end up dead.”

    Barghest nodded. “I need to take some time to think about this.” But he'd already made up his mind. “Just tell me your name,” he said as he held out a hand.

    “Maelstrom,” the columnist said, shaking the hand. Barghest felt his heart briefly squeezed. “Welcome to Citadel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Things and people responsible for this fic: Arsonist's Lullaby - Hozier, the Three Fates and their Copy Editor (you all know who you are), Portal 2 soundtrack, my excessively morbid mind, 2 a.m., an otherwise boring week
> 
> This is a work set in a world loosely based on Wildbow's Worm, and it uses the slang “capes”. All characters are original, as are many of the concepts of the world (about as original as a superhero story can get).
> 
> Also I finally figured out a term for powered people that I like. "Allohuman". "Allo-" is a Greek-based prefix meaning other. (Thank you elentari7 you are a wonderful person)
> 
> Cast:
> 
> Andrew “Andy” Johnson - Barghest (13 in 1975, 16 in 1978, 22 in 1984, 30 in 1992), creates sound “dead zone” where perception of sound is blocked (the center of this zone is always anchored to him, and he can change the radius as he pleases, covering up to the size of a moderately large house)  
> William “Willy”, Robert Jr “Little Rob”, Alexander “Alex” Johnson - Barghest's older brothers (18, 17, and 16 in 1975)  
> Jonathan “Jack”, Franklin “Frankie”, Thomas “Tommy”, Robert III “Tiny Bob” Johnson - Barghest's younger brothers (10, 9, 7, and 2 in 1975)  
> The Old Man - Barghest's perpetually drunk father  
> The director - head of the CIA's allohuman division  
> Maelstrom - founder of Citadel (28 in 1992), allohuman of unknown powers, political columnist


End file.
